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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

I've been tagged again (oh, I love this!). ^^ This time by Kimberly, and the rules are the following: each person starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write their own blog with their 7 things as well as these rules. You need to tag 7 others and list their names on your blog. Remember to leave a comment for them letting them know they have been tagged and to read your blog.

1. Whenever there is anything emotionally wrong with my life I get physically ill. For example, I didn't like going to the kindergarten and I was seriously ill for most of the time so I was left home with my Grandparents and I felt better the next day! ^^

2. For my culinary taste chicken as a dish could consist only of that soft cartilage tissue next to the bones, I always collect the bones from my friends plates and eat these parts that they have left.

3. Unfortunately I often act first, then think... That's why when I'm angry I shout first and then I rethink the situation and feel ashamed of my hasty reaction.

4. I always have very short nails because I feel that they are in the way when I do anything with my hands.

5. I like sunny weather and I love the rain, but I absolutely hate when there is a sun and rain at the same time.

6. I like and can eat almost anything, apart from the pumpkin dishes.

7. I am a hoarder and I find it very difficult to let go of things, because I always believe I'd find some use for them in the future...

Well, talking about letting things go - today I finally got rid of all my old unused jackets that hanged in my wardrobe since the day I left my office job.Three years and four months ago.Well...It's not that I ever thought about wearing them again, at first I wanted to cut them into pieces, then I wanted to sell them and make some money, but in the end I just left them at the back of my wardrobe. They occupied the precious storage space in our tiny one-bedroom flat and finally today I just packed them into a big bag and placed it next to the garbage bin hoping that somebody else may find them useful.(Frankly speaking they all were rather ugly, totally unflattering in style and of unpleasant fabrics, greyish and dark blue, yuk!)Bye, bye, old office uniforms! *^v^*

(PS.: I'm not tagging anyone because from my latest visits to many blogs I found out that most bloggers I know has already participated. If you, my Dear Reader, haven't done it, please feel free to do that and let me know in the comments so I could read 7 facts from your life! ^^)

Although we came back from the Viking event late night on Sunday I'm still trying to recover from it - I'm doing the laundry, wash our medieval dishes and generally distribute things where they belong (clothes, sheepskins, accessories, ect). It was a very nice weekend, very hot with a short rain periods on Saturday which didn't upset us much because it brought some relief after the piping hot sun! ^^Here is a peek on what we were up to last weekend:

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Is there a greater joy for a knitter than to see the project emerging in front of his/her own eyes? ^^

Here is the latest picture of the Mameluke socks I'm knitting as a commision for a friend - I finished both leg parts and done one heel. Today he is visiting us and he'll try them on, and I hope they'll fit!Apart from knitting I've been sewing like mad for the last week or so, because we are attending a Viking event next weekend and I decided to finish some old projects: I made a linen bag for myself, and I'm still working on a dress for myself (all hand stitched) and a pair of naalbinded socks for Robert. Photos probably after the weekend.

The weather has been beautiful for the last couple of days and we spent last Saturday on my parents' allotment. On the way back home we were stopped by a neighbour lady who gave me three gorgeous peonies from her garden! *^v^*

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Congratulations, Serbia!!!It is a really beautiful song and you definitely deserved to win! ^^

Although I had some other favorites, too. In no particular order I liked the Hungarian blues, the unusual Bulgarian and Georgian songs, the Gothic Finland and Slovenia, the yummy Swedish guitar player (*^v^*), the almost cabaret France, the kitschy but funny Ukraine. But they couldn't win all, right?

And if you haven't seen both Finnish performances on Thursday and Saturday at the end of the contest you missed great magical mystical shows! It made me want to visit Finland once again (I was in Helsinki about 17 years ago). ^^

BTW, I'd like to say how ashamed I am with the Polish band... It was a lame copy of the American style pop, nothing original, the song was generally bad and the performance was tragically poor... Let's just wipe it out of my memory.

Friday, May 11, 2007

I've been very busy naalbinding all week and today's post will be illustrated with my creations: a pair of socks for myself and six colourful pouches that I may be selling at some medieval events this year. ^^I love how these socks came out - they fit really perfectly, which is not that easy to achieve with naalbinding.

I would also like to share with you some of my thoughts on the the idea found in the book called "People in Quandries: the semantics of personal adjustment" by Wendell Johnson, 1946 - the trap that people find themselves in, it's called the IFD trap. I stands for Idealizing (thinking about what it's going to be like, when...), what Dr. Wayne Dyer calls "the psychology of tomorrow". F stands for Frustration (because of Idealizing you are never happy in live, because you are living in the future). D stands for Demoralisation (how do you deal with Frustration? You are Demoralised and you Idealize again, and it's a vicious circle).

I've been in this trap all my life.Mainly in the first part of it, that is Idealizing. I've always been living in the future, not enjoying the present moment but always thinking how happy and perfect my life would be in some time ahead of me, when something happens, when I get a better job or when I live in a bigger apartment, ect, ect. I even lived with the following philosophy: I would do something or try something or change in some way if I (had more money, lived somewhere else, got other education, had some other talents, ect, ect). But unless it happens I won't bother to even try.

There I was, waiting for the miraculous changes in my life to come. And only recently I've realized that I should start doing something in order to initialize those changes that I wanted to see in my life. I need to change my way of thinking about my life and living my life. I have to see that, although there are some limitations (or are they really?...), I can start making small steps towards my dream future. But those step will be made right now, in the present, there is no other way to do it.

And as a food for your thoughts, here are some questions (taken from the lecture of Dr. Wayne Dyer) that we may ask ourselves and think about the answers from time to time:

If you had only 6 months to live,- How would you change your life?- Who would you choose to live with, if you could choose anybody?- Where would you choose to live?- How much sleep you would get if you had no clock and no ability to measure time?- How much and when would you eat if there wasn't something like meal times?- What would you do if there was no such thing as money? What you be doing in your life on a daily basis?- How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were? Old, middle-aged, young?- How would you describe yourself if you couldn't use any labels?

and then act every day as if it was to be true, grabbing everyday by its throat and living to the fullest. *^v^*

Now I'm off to another naalbinded pair of socks - this time for Robert. ^^

Monday, May 07, 2007

Unfortunately we didn't manage to visit the Viking event last weekend. But it's not that I don't have anything to show you today! *^v^*

Throughout the whole weekend I've been naalbinding. I'll show you some of my creations at the end of the week, but one big project has been finished and is ready to be used (almost, it's still a bit wet after felting).

I took four colours of wool from my stash, made the bottom of the bag in one colour, constantly adding stitches to acquire a wheel, and then continued with other three colours (as you can see, I ran out of the dark brown in about 2/3 of the project, so I finished with only three colours).Here is a picture showing all four colours meeting at one point - I love the results you can achieve while working in this technique, you lead all colours simultaneously around the bag making one row on top of the previous one.

I really wasn't sure whether I was making the right size of the bag because I knew it would shrink while felted but I had no idea about the amount of this shrinking. Each yarn shrinks differently and each naalbinded stitch shrinks differently - York stitch is very loose so it will tighten a lot, Oslo stitch (used here) is a bit tighter but also rather loose so it may shrink a lot, but when you felt Finnish stitch or Russian stitch - they are very tight from the beginning so they won't change much after felting.The bag was a bit too wide for its future contents before felting and it turned out perfectly sized after felting! Lucky me! *^v^*

But what is it exactly?

When we went to the medieval market in Ilza last Thursday we bought a lantern to have some light in our tent - it's made of wood and a very thin parchment, and you insert a candle inside.I immediately decided that I want a lamp cozy so it would be protected from any scratches while transported in a car and here it is! ^^

I created a group on Flickr today calledNaalbinding, where I would like to gather many naalbinded projects, so if you know this craft and make things with a needle, please join and share your creations! *^v^*

On other topics: thank you, Didlinaknitsand Rho for your support on my post about closing the shop! I'm definitely going to think about this 2,5 year period as a good experience and build on it some new projects and enterprises.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Just a quick post in between two medieval events - X-th Tournament in Ilza dated for the XIII century (photos of myself and Robert above, can you see my naalbinded bag in the background? ^^), and early medieval "Vikings and Slavs" market in Kanie near Warsaw (we hope to visit this event tomorrow).

To Ilza I took the Muslim sock I'm knitting for my friend Lukasz and he got a chance to try one on. I'm very pleased with the result so far, now I'll knit the narrow pattern around the ankle and will try the heel, which is weird and unusual, as if half a heel to knit. I hope it will work. Funny thing though, up till now I've been following the pattern of the sock exactly how it was excavated, so it seems that whoever wore the historical originals, he had exactly the same calves as my friend! ^^

Now I'm off to some finishing touches to my medieval outfit (there are always some finishing touches just before leaving for the event...). *^v^*

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Experiment failed. For 2,5 years we tried to introduce here in Poland different types of Gothic fashion - cute Gothic Lolita and elegant Victorian clothes and accessories. Unfortunately Polish customers prefer German type of Gothic - faux leather and plastic of poor quality, fishnet blouses, SM accessories, latex skirts. Moreover, the buyers here are mostly teenagers and they prefer to spend their money on several beers rather than on a nice lacy blouse or a corset.Well, what's done is done, no regrets, let's just leave this experience behind us and move on to new challenges and ideas.

And I have to face me demons again - I have to tell my family that we closed the shop. Which will cause a chain of "I told you it was a bad idea from the start" and "you should have closed it a long time ago" conversations, and I would like to avoid all this somehow, because I'm not interested in such opinions. Having our own business was a valuable experience and I'm happy that we tried it, and the choice of products we were selling was in line with our interests - but my mom suggested selling vegetables from the very beginning!... Because it would have been profitable. Well, it wasn't all about the money for us.But how can I explain it to anybody?